


Together, Bound

by tzzzz



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:05:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzzzz/pseuds/tzzzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I twine us together. I bind myself to you."  At the end of the legend, Lancelot and the Lady look back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together, Bound

When it's all said and done. After Meleagant, after Guinevere is hidden away in a convent, after Merlin has long since disappeared, and Arthur has been laid to rest, Lancelot will return to the Lake. He'll strip away his clothes and sink down into the cool waters that took Arthur's body away, confident that they will not harm him.  
  
The Lady lets him through, today. She always protects him, always has. The bottom is soft and smooth with silt, and the mottled greens and blues that form in the wall of water beyond his bubble set the mood for his coming. Arthur's face is pale now, his skin delicate like the rarest of papers. The stone slab that is his tomb is cold to touch, as is his skin. But the the strength of his preserved musculature, the sharp handsome features that Lancelot had once loved - they are all preserved perfectly.  
  
Merlin is down here too, trapped in a prison beyond a waterfall to wait out the rest of his days, if he might die at all. Lancelot will visit with him too, but not today. He reaches out and runs a hand down Arthur's cheek. His skin, too is cold. That is death. And Lancelot brought it about in his own way.  
  
And all he ever wanted was to serve his King. Honor and courage and knighthood had been so simple in youth, when all he cared about was the defense of the kingdom. He'd been selfless enough to lie down his life for Arthur. Looking at the man now, Lancelot would still trade his life for his King's. He would do it in a heartbeat, without hesitation. He would take the grail, burning his adulterous hands and bring life back to the man that he loved above all else.  
  
But loving someone and not hurting them were never the same, so here in the murky darkness, he lets his tears spill, thinking back to when it was simple. That first night, his head full of ale and his shoulder's still warm from the King's blade pronouncing him knight and Arthur's arm around him, he'd looked at his Prince and suddenly seen just a boy, as bound by the laws of the King as any of them, but wanting, striving to do right.  
  
That first betrayal, the first chipping away at the trust between them, before they had even met, it had stung, because things could never be right between them. There'd always be at least one lie. In years later, many, many more. He wondered it she meant it that way. The Lady, that is. Perhaps the first betrayal was years before when she took him in the depth of the wood, promised that one day he would be a great knight.  
  
But then, looking into Arthur's smiling eyes, there had been a spark, a chance to erase the rules and covenants that stood between them and return to equality. No lies, because bodies didn't lie.  
  
So he'd told Merlin that he'd stumble back in the morning, after he'd helped his drunken Prince to bed. He'd laid Arthur out, all toned muscle and lazy blue eyes, expecting service, no, demanding it. There had been few kisses - not back then. Kisses were for later, after battles hard-won, or moonless nights out in the orchard while the court feasted in the halls beyond.  
  
That first night had been about the feel of Arthur's skin beneath his, the frantic beat of his heart, the honor that they should do this here, magic of a different sort, far from the eyes of the King. Lancelot's heart had opened itself up that night, the layer's peeled from his chest until it seemed to pulse around them. And at the same time he looked on his future king with love, his heart was also breaking, for in opening it up, he'd let the lie in.  
  
Lancelot did not kid himself to think that the Prince would want of beautiful peasants or serving girls or young willing men to share his bed. He did not dare let himself believe that for Arthur this night should be anything special, despite the practiced competence he demonstrated with the oil and the preparation. Even the pleasured moans he drew expertly from Lancelot's throat did not mean a thing to him, Lancelot was sure. But there had been a moment, afterwards, when even tired from wine and rucking, Arthur had opened those bright blue eyes and stared at Lancelot with full awareness before falling into peaceful sleep. Lancelot had been awed that his prince would trust him so as to fall asleep right there before him, leaving a thousand ways for assassination. The Prince's body may sung for many, but in that moment, Lancelot was sure that the  _trust_  had been for him alone.  
  
And he did not deserve it, after arriving here by lies. Despite the soreness in his muscles and the lethargy of a good orgasm not yet passed, his heart hammered with guilt. His fingers itched to shake Arthur awake and confess the lie this very second, to make it up, as he would forever be making it up. But instead, he'd whispered a half-remembered prayer, a blessing given to him each night by the Lady before he want to sleep.  
  
He did not know the language, but he remembered the meaning. "I twine us together. I bind myself to you."  
  
He laughs, now, at his naivete. "It's not a prayer," he says to the wall of water. "It's a curse."  
  
"Not a curse," she says. Her skin is white as bone, her body covered in moss and algae as she steps forth from the water. "No more than it is a curse to love. You wove your fates together that evening. You let him take you, and that is something a man never forgets. His spirt doesn't forget it."  
  
He's long ago ceased to be frightened of her. How can he be? She's both given him everything, and taken everything away, as she did to Arthur and Merlin, as she's done to them all. There's a symmetry to it that sparkles of magic. Nothing comes without a price.  
  
"I performed a spell, that night. Didn't I?"  
  
"Yes. As it was foretold."  
  
But if it was foretold, then why did he need a spell at all. Wouldn't it happen no matter what?  
  
She chuckles, a deep booming laughter inconsistent with her delicate features. She knows his question. She knows his soul. "Magic flows around us like the water. His father was right to fear it, if not to realize the uselessness in banning it. You reach out, you call to it and it comes to you. You could not help but call to it. Your fate, your destiny. You could not fight it, and yet had you not done as you had, the world would be different."  
  
"So you, also, have no choice but manipulate us mortals? You had no choice but to cause so much pain? To Arthur? To me?"  
  
"Shhh..." she whispers, as she did when he was just a child. She presses her finger to his lips, her skin cold and seemingly devoid of life, but beloved. "I twine us together. I bind myself to you. I feel your pain, even as I hurt you. I give you all my success, though it be up to fate to shape it."  
  
She's never told him the last part. He feels it though. God, has he felt it.  
  
She kisses his forehead then, a cold comfort and an empty blessing. "If you could see the future that is coming, the brilliance that will be, you would understand."  
  
Perhaps he would, but staring down at the man he both loved and betrayed, he knows he will never believe it. Nothing could be worth this. When he met the Lady long ago, she promised him that justice would be done.  
  
He know it has been. He just can't see how.  
  



End file.
